Panel Mulls Offering School-Level NAEP Data

Hoping to encourage more schools to take part in the National
Assessment of Educational Progress, federal officials are weighing a
proposal to give schools feedback on how their students perform on the
exams.

NAEP tests—considered a national thermometer of student
achievement—are given periodically to representative samples of
students across the nation at three grade levels. But the program
provides results only at the state and national levels. Local
educators, some of whom spend three to four days administering the
exams, never learn the results for their individual schools.

That is partly why some schools have begun to balk at participating
in the program. Of the 48 states that indicated a willingness to take
part in NAEP earlier this year, for example, eight had to back out when
they were unable to recruit the required numbers of schools. ("Test- Weary Schools Balk at
NAEP," Feb. 16, 2000.)

"It's an increasing problem, but it's not critical yet," said Gary
W. Phillips, the acting U.S. commissioner of education statistics. "But
there's been a gradual decline in school participation over time, and
that's also because we're competing with other tests now."

Providing school-level scores is the most far-reaching of eight
recommendations for increasing NAEP participation issued last month by
a special committee of the National Assessment Governing Board, the
independent national panel that sets policy for NAEP.

Among the committee's other recommendations: explaining better the
purposes of the tests to local educators, hiring contractors to
administer the tests in schools, testing entire grades of students in
participating schools rather than handfuls from several classes,
coordinating the programs' testing schedule to avoid conflicts with
state tests, and providing "tool kits" with information from the tests
that teachers could use to improve instruction or to link test
questions to state subject-matter standards.

Costly Implications

The proposal to provide school-level data, which would require
congressional approval, is particularly significant because it could
change the character of the 31-year- old testing program.

"When you start reporting on what schools know and can do, you're
really getting into a whole other kind of survey," said Mr. Phillips.
"It moves from being a thermometer to a thermostat. I would recommend
that before we attempt that, we have a national discussion about the
national assessment and what we want it to do." The trick, he said,
would be to redesign the test in a way that ensures accuracy and
maintains the program's long-term trend data.

Some of the committee's other proposals, on the other hand, could
clearly raise the federal government's cost for the testing
program.

One is the recommendation to hire contractors to administer the
tests at the school level, rather than putting the burden on local
schools. Currently, federal officials hire contractors to manage the
national NAEP test but not the state-by-state assessment.

"There would be no increase in total dollars, but there would be a
shift from state dollars to federal dollars," said Michael J. Guerra,
who chaired the eight-member committee.

Another big- ticket item—and one that would need no special
congressional approval—is the panel's suggestion to test entire
grades of students.

"The assumption is that this would be far less disruptive than the
current situation in which a handful of kids are taken from several
classrooms, leaving the school with the problem of what to do with the
students who are not being tested," added Mr. Guerra, who is the
executive director of the secondary schools department for the National
Catholic Educational Association in Washington.

No Pay for Schools

The committee considered and rejected a proposal to pay schools to
participate. Mr. Guerra said discussions with teachers and principals
convinced panel members that such a measure would be ineffective.

The governing board will take up the report at its next meeting in
November and then refer individual proposals to subcommittees for
further consideration.

It's unclear, however, whether the board will make a final decision
before Congress takes up reauthorization of the testing program
sometime next year.

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